Goth on the Planet
by imekitty
Summary: Sam wants to find out what happened between her and Paulina. By twisting her words around, Delphine gets Sam to wish to switch places with Paulina. Sequel to Luckiest Girl


**Author's Note: **This is a sequel. You need to read "The Luckiest Girl in the World" first. Otherwise, you might be confused.

I know, it's been a long time. Believe it or not, the original plan was to upload this November 25 of _last_ year, but Calculus sucked up my life (college sucks, don't believe the LIES). Also, I was kind of in a Danny Phantom slump after watching the last season and episode. The series fell way short of its potential. Also, also, I scrapped the original idea for the sequel because I couldn't get Paulina to act the way I wanted her to in that setting (Sam invited Danny to go on a cruise with her. Paulina was on the same cruise. The girls didn't know that the other was there, so Danny had to try to keep them secret from each other but at the same time hang out with them). It seemed better as its own story rather than a sequel, so I started over on a new idea. I thought it'd be fun to have Sam be conscious of a switch this time.

Anyway, you get the first part of the sequel on this, the sixteenth anniversary of my one true fandom (guess what it is!).

**Goth on the Planet**

Sam observed her hair in Danny's mirror. Her blonde roots were starting to show. She combed her hair with her fingers in a way that made them less noticeable, then turned around and sighed. Danny still hadn't finished reading.

He sat on his bed, his pencil loosely between his fingers. At last he closed the book and looked at Sam. "Okay, what? What exactly are we writing our English essay on?"

Sam rolled her eyes and sat down next to him. "Existentialism."

Danny stared at her blankly and dropped his pencil on top of the book. School had been out for two hours already, and Mr. Lancer had just assigned the essay that day. Danny had wanted to wait to do it, but Sam wanted to get it out of the way.

"Yeah, okay," he said, "but what does 'existentialism' _mean_?"

Sam shook her head. "Well, you'd have to read the book to really understand it, but basically, it's—well—" She grabbed the book and turned to a page she had dog-eared. "—a philosophical idea that emphasizes individual existence, freedom, and choice. It's an idea that pursues meaning in existence, stresses the active role of the will rather than of reason in facing problems posed by a hostile universe."

Danny gaped at her, his eyes clouded over. "What?"

"Oh, you'll get it as we go," said Sam.

Danny took the book back and flipped through it. "This is insane! Why are we writing our essay on _this_?"

"Because," Sam said with a small lift in her voice, "it's interesting."

"I'd choose _easy_ over _interesting_."

"Danny, we're writing our essay on existentialism, and that's final!"

Danny chuckled softly and continued to look through the book, reading a few sentences here and there. Sam watched him. She watched his eyes scan the pages, his hair hang over his forehead, his mouth move as he silently formed the words. She quickly turned her head away.

It had been two months, two months since Danny broke up with Paulina. Ever since, Sam had tried to get him to notice her more. She knew that Danny liked her; why couldn't he just say it?

Well, that was a fairly easy question to answer. Danny was obviously still confused about his feelings. She saw Paulina slow her pace when she walked by him. She saw Danny's expression when she greeted him in the hall. Danny still liked Paulina, and Paulina still wanted Danny.

_She can't have him,_ thought Sam for what seemed to be the thousandth time over the last eight weeks. Danny deserved better than Paulina. She didn't trust the Latina. Paulina had done something to her, messed with her life somehow…

_But how?_ It was a mystery Sam had been trying to figure out. Just what did she do? The picture that used to be tacked on the rim of her mirror, the picture that she had lost…she knew that that picture held some piece to the puzzle, but she had lost it long ago. She had tried to confront Paulina about it many times, but the Hispanic girl would shrug her off and walk away, but not before flashing a smile in Danny's direction.

Despite the fact that she hated Paulina and didn't trust her, she had to admit that there was a definite change in the girl. She seemed happier and more content then she had ever been. Her face wasn't contorted with the hint of ulterior motives like it used to be. She looked bright with an expression of serene determination and certainty. She walked as if she had a true purpose in life.

This confirmed for Sam that Paulina had definitely messed with her life. This sudden change…it was somehow linked to what happened. For a week, which seemed like a very distant memory now, she acted without thinking. The events that happened in that week weren't too clear. One morning, she woke up, and she could think again. For another week after that, she had felt a strange pressure on her being; a feeling of dread, anguish, and hate. She slowly overcame that feeling and was soon her normal goth self again, but she still wondered the same thing every night as she lay awake in bed: what happened?

She turned back to her friend, who was still looking through the book and looking even more confused. She recalled something, something that Danny had mentioned two months earlier. "Danny," she said, "Remember that one time at lunch, when you said that you thought Delphine had something to do with Paulina finding out about your ghost powers?"

Danny blinked and thought for a moment. "Yeah," he said slowly, "but why are you bringing it up now? That was forever ago."

Sam shrugged. "I just remembered it now." She leaned back on the bed a little, supporting her weight with her hands. "Have you asked her about it?"

Danny nodded. "Once, about two months ago. She's a very hard ghost to find. Actually, I didn't even find her. She found _me_." He closed the book and held it in his hands.

"What did she say?" asked Sam.

Danny narrowed his eyes. "That's the annoying thing. She said _nothing_. I asked her, but she just laughed and said 'Wouldn't _you_ like to know?' Then, she disappeared. I didn't even have time to catch her."

"Where can she be found?" asked Sam. She wanted to question the ghost herself…

"You can't find her," said Danny. "She just appears to certain people." He laughed. "She's crazy, let me tell you. You've seen her before, right?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, she came to us right after you were almost hit by that train. That's when you explained everything you knew about her to Tucker and me."

Danny was about to say something about the train incident, but suddenly remembered Sam's question. "Sam, do you _want_ to find Delphine or something?"

Sam didn't answer for a moment. "Well, yes. I've told you, haven't I? I want to find out what happened to me that week, and, well, maybe Delphine knows."

"I see," said Danny. "Well, if you have a true desire to see her, she will come to you." He sat up straighter. "But Sam, you have to be careful around her. She can be very deceptive. She knows what you want, and she'll give it to you if it'll give her some sort of pleasure as well."

Sam smiled. "I'm not going to make a wish or anything. I just want to know what happened." Her cell phone rang. She looked at the Caller ID and groaned. "It's from home." She answered the call and said unenthusiastically, "Hello? … Hmm? … Right now?" She rolled her eyes and huffed. "Fine, whatever." She disconnected the call and turned to Danny.

"You have to go?" asked Danny.

"Yeah," said Sam. She stood and stretched her arms. "Read that book tonight, Danny. You don't have to read the whole thing. If you don't understand something, you can ask Jazz. I'm sure she knows all about existentialism."

Danny laughed. "Yeah, I'm sure, too." He stood as well and walked with her out of his room, down the stairs, and to his front door. "How are you getting home?" he asked.

"Someone's coming to pick me up," said Sam. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, a black car drove up. "And there he is now."

"It must be cool to be rich. You get everything so fast," observed Danny.

"Oh, believe me, it's not as great as you think," said Sam. She waved goodbye and hopped into the back seat of the car. She rolled down the window and yelled back to Danny, "Read that book!" She leaned back in her seat and sighed as the car drove off. She knew Danny wouldn't be able to understand a word of it.

-DP-

Mr. Lancer was passing out graded essays from the previous day. He silently handed students their assignments. Some moaned, some grinned, some indifferently stuffed the papers into their binders. Paulina clasped her hands together on her desk. Her right leg was shaking uncontrollably. She watched the teacher come nearer.

He handed Danny's paper to him. Paulina saw Danny's ears redden as he quickly covered his score with his hand so that Tucker couldn't see it. Paulina sighed and softly smiled. So much had happened in the past two months, but the only thing she was really conscious of was that Danny was still not hers.

She tried to get him to notice her. She tried talking to him. Danny was more than happy to hang out with her sometimes, but he never let things go too far between them. He cut her off whenever she tried to tell him her feelings. He walked away whenever she attempted to advance on him. It seemed strange to her that only a few months ago, Danny was completely infatuated with her, and now, he was the first boy to ever resist her charm. Why was the only boy she ever actually liked the only one who was able to push her away?

"Paulina!" a male voice whispered. Paulina turned around. Dash was holding up his essay and grinning. He had obviously had some poor geek do the assignment for him.

Paulina smiled weakly. She was once again friends with the blonde jock even though she had claimed to hate him before. She really had no one else to go to, after all. She wanted to be with Danny more often, but Sam never allowed it.

She remembered when Danny broke up with her. After school that day, she had been sitting under her favorite tree, flipping the pages of her history book, reading the words to herself and trying to make sense of them.

Dash had come up to her with a slow, cautious pace. He stood before her nervously. Paulina didn't look up and pretended he wasn't there. Finally, the jock cleared his throat and said, "Paulina, um…what are you doing?"

"Studying," she replied simply.

"Studying? Why?"

"We have a test tomorrow, and I haven't looked this over at all."

"That never made you study before."

"There's a first time for everything." She wanted to get her mind off of Danny. Memorizing boring history facts seemed like the perfect way to do it. She had gone almost ten minutes without thinking about him now…

Dash uncomfortably shifted his weight. "So…Fenton broke up with you?"

"Go away," Paulina said evenly.

"Paulina, come on!" Dash cried. Paulina could hear the rising frustration in his voice. "You can't keep doing this to me! You just can't! Especially since I…" He paused. "I would never do such a thing to you."

Paulina lifted her gaze to meet his. She could see the sincerity in his eyes, the seriousness of his expression. She sighed. "Dash…it can't work between us."

Dash's face fell. "Can't you give us a chance?"

Paulina slowly shook her head. "No, Dash."

"Well…will you at least talk to me again?"

"What do you think I'm doing now?"

"I mean…we're still friends, right?"

Paulina frowned. Friends? Friends with the boy that had hurt the person she cared about most? Friends with the boy that put down others just to amuse himself? She turned back to her history book. "I don't know."

Dash had left after that. In the weeks that followed, he continued to come up to her whenever he had the chance. He continued to pick her up for school everyday. He continued to try to make up for what he had done to make her so angry. When he bought her a Danny Phantom figure with a bobbing head, she couldn't help but smile.

Now she was looking at him only a few seats behind her, a boyish grin lighting up his face as he held up his assignment. Paulina turned away and put a hand to her vaguely aching forehead.

Mr. Lancer set Paulina's essay on her desk facedown. Paulina turned it over and smiled at the 88 written at the top in red ink. It wasn't the highest grade she had ever gotten. Like Dash, she used to have less fortunate students do her work for her. It was different this time, though. She had earned the grade herself. It was hers through her own work.

She placed the essay in her binder and looked up to find Danny's eyes on her. She met his gaze before he quickly looked away. Her headache intensified, the frustration and embarrassment of losing Danny overwhelming her. She immediately stood up, grabbed her bag, and walked to the classroom door where she hastily signed out on the clipboard hanging on the wall. She almost expected Mr. Lancer to ask her why she felt she needed to take her school bag to the restroom, but he continued to pass out papers.

Out in the hall, she moved to the nearest drinking fountain and pulled out a small container of over-the-counter pills from a pocket in her bag. Medication of any kind was not allowed to be carried around by students, so Paulina, like the rest of the students in the school, had to keep her pills that worked wonders for headaches hidden. She placed two pills in her mouth and swallowed them with a large gulp of water. She sighed and put her forehead to the wall, enjoying the cool surface of the wall against her pounding head.

Why was she still feeling this way after two months?

She soon walked back to the classroom. All eyes glanced at her briefly, but Sam's eyes pinned her with a glare. Paulina ignored her, signed in, and sat back down in her seat.


End file.
